Hey everybody, here's something I just wrote, yeah, it's a huge wall of text, sorry, but I would appreciate feedback. I don't mention all the issues, but touch on the game modes, pros, cons, and overall what I think of the game. I've always wanted to review free things on the internet, and here is the first thing I've done, so please be easy on me over it. And here is your wall of text.

There's a lot of free First Person Shooters out there, too many to talk about right now, but today I want to talk about my favorite... Or former favorite. Whatever! This, is Combat Arms!

For those of you none the wiser, Combat Arms is, (of course), a free first person shooter developed by Doobie Studios, and published by Nexon, (who also created the well known Maple Story). It was released in 2008 after a short beta. The game has become rather successful, garnering around 5,000,000 players, not bad for a free game! It also has generally positive reviews.

Enough with the history, let's talk about the game, starting with the lobby system.
One thing I was going to talk about with this game was the AMAZING lobby system it used to have. Easy to read servers, easy to understand lobby system. If you played it, you know what I mean, it was better than lobby systems in mainstream games like Call of Duty, or even Valve's games... Then they had to ruin it. They released a major update that completely redesigned it, not what do we have. Grey, grey, and, you guessed it, MORE FRELLING GREY!!!! Not only this, but everything is SO much harder read, weapons are impossible to sort through in the store, and now al the NX weapons are mixed in with the GP weapons... Ugh, NX points. We'll get to that later, but I should probably explain the weapons system.

The way the purchasing system works in this game is quite different than most games. You still get money, or as it's known in game, GP, (gear points), to get your items. The thing that is different is that you actually RENT your weapons and items, the longer the rent, the more expensive. This is actually rather nice because you can spend a small amount of money on a weapon to try it out before you invest in a longer rental. You can also get things like a bigger backpack to carry more weapons, bigger grenades, or jackets to make you run faster or take less damage. It's not a bad system, but one of it's major flaws is the NX system.

The NX points system is your average, "real money," currency to buy in game items. I get that, it's a free game, they gotta make money somehow right? The problem is that there are SO many exclusive, weapons that have MAJOR advantages over the normal weapons. Like the ability to purchase a character that runs significantly faster as a normal character, equip her with a minigun, and a grenade launcher to completely demolish all the normal players in the lobby. It's annoying. Speaking of this character, take a look at this: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...27s_Reveal.jpg that makes sense right? Covering your whole body, EXCEPT YOUR CHEST AND HEAD! But of course we HAVE to have ♥♥♥♥ in this game right?!? Anyway, back to the NX system, if they balanced it more, I wouldn't have a problem, but as it stands now, you can make yourself a super soldier and squash the normal players like bugs.

The gameplay is pretty standard, you have traditional modes like Free for all and team deathmatch, (Elimination and One Man Army respectively), as well as other classic modes like Search and Destroy or Capture the flag. There are also a few special modes like fireteam, (a campaign style set of levels, or infection survival levels), and Quarantine, (a "zombie" mode very similar to the counter strike mod).

In the regular modes, you kill all the enemies until a set score limit, enemies take more than a standard amount of damage, more than games like Call of Duty, but less than games like Team Fortress 2 or Halo, (in regards to player health, not gameplay). There is no regenerating health and a pretty straightforward stamina system that drains when you sprint. As mentioned earlier, you can use a large selection of guns that can be unlocked and rented from the in game store. You can equip these with attachments like silencers and acog scopes, and extended mags (the only time you get to aim your weapon is with some kind of scope). Your character can usually carry 2 -3 weapons, which can all be primary or secondary weapons, depending on what you want. It's straightforward old school FPS fun, it can be very enjoyable, and VERY frustrating. Like when somebody keeps killing you from the same camping spot before you can fire off a single shot at them. GOD that jaratees me off. When it comes right down to it, this is the games core and it gets most of it right. A few mechanics could be tweaked, but its still quite playable and enjoyable, even if you have a library of retail games.

The special modes are hit and miss, fireteam, which is actually more like two game modes in itself, is a perfect example for this. The goal is to get to a certain place, basically point A to point B, passing some checkpoints on the way, (this is where dead players respawn and extra lives are granted). It's all right, but the thing holding it back is its' difficulty. You face HUNDREDS of enemies, all of which are pretty deadly in the harder modes and almost always drop grenades at there death. You'll face some cheap deaths sometimes. It's annoying. Then there is the wave survival where you fight "infected", Zombie like creatures who have LOADS of health. No, seriously, your in a little house, (in the first map), fighting off these guys and they take a LOT of bullets to kill. Then the exploding zombies come, and the grenade dropping zombies, and the tank like zombies. It's hard. But... Surprisingly, it's kind of refreshing! It's hard to beat! Unlike a lot of wave defense where the enemies are MUCH weaker than you. Hard? Yes, Fun? Most of the time, yet frustrating at others. Then there is the other mode, quarantine. In this mode you start out as a group of humans, than 2 or 3 will mutate into the infected. In this form, you are stronger, faster, and can regenerate your health. When this mode was first released, it was near impossible for humans to kill the infected, but through a series of updates, it has become much easier. The coolest thing about this is being a human, becoming infected, and then turning on your teammates who were previously helping you. The goal is simple, as infected, infect all the humans, as human, either kill the infected, or survive the time limit. It's a BLAST to play, it's a very fun game mode and I absolutely love it.

Well that's the basic rundown of the game there are some more things to it, but you can find those out for yourself! Overall I'd give this game a 78% or around that threshold. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an old school type FPS with a modern twist. You can get it at http://combatarms.nexon.net/ (American) or http://en.combatarms.nexoneu.com/Intro.aspx (UK). Have fun!

So...why don't you just play Quake live if you want old fashioned MP first person shooters? It's COMPLETELY free and has a deeper gameplay.

Who me? Because QL doesn't run on Firefox + Linux (yes I know it's supported but there's all sorts of problems for me), I have horrible OpenGL problems on Windows that makes the game much harder to play, and I already have Quake 3 Arena. Also, I do like CS/AVA types of games, but the renting weapons system is just a cheap way to get people to buy your ingame money and the people who do buy the ingame money need their money's worth otherwise they'll complain and not buy more, so you have to give them lots of benefits. Which then continues to horribly break weapon balance.

EDIT: Just realized that 'oi u agree' wasn't referring to me, but hey, it's a chance to rant a little

EDIT2: Nutshots are also plain stupid. Heads aren't big enough targets, so let's add another instakill part of the hitbox?

So...why don't you just play Quake live if you want old fashioned MP first person shooters? It's COMPLETELY free and has a deeper gameplay.

Quake live is a COMPLETELY different type of FPS. It's MUCH MUCH faster paced, which some people don't like. The whole point of a REVIEW is to talk about a title, not say, "Don't play this, play this instead." Sorry if I'm coming across as rude here though, not trying to.

Who me? Because QL doesn't run on Firefox + Linux (yes I know it's supported but there's all sorts of problems for me), I have horrible OpenGL problems on Windows that makes the game much harder to play, and I already have Quake 3 Arena. Also, I do like CS/AVA types of games, but the renting weapons system is just a cheap way to get people to buy your ingame money and the people who do buy the ingame money need their money's worth otherwise they'll complain and not buy more, so you have to give them lots of benefits. Which then continues to horribly break weapon balance.

EDIT: Just realized that 'oi u agree' wasn't referring to me, but hey, it's a chance to rant a little

I enjoy the game myself. It's pretty decent. When I want to play without teamwork or cooperation I either play Scout in TF2 Death Match mod, spy in regular play, or Combat Arms for a slightly more "CoDish" experience while not being too fast paced, arcadey and stupid for my tastes.